Women in Chinses History

Although there have been women in China that have held positions of power and even lead in prominent positions, the history of the Chinese civilization has been one of male dominance. "Unfortunately, no level of leadership, education or social prominence for women has changed the patriarchal nature of traditional Chinese society (Perry 279)." Women in Chinese society are still considered to be a possession of the man or are looked upon as servants. Because they are seen in this manner, except for a few, women have not been able to contribute spiritually, politically or scientifically to Chinese society. It is to say almost for certain that women being constrained in this manner has prevented China from advancing to its full potential. The morale of a suppressive society is not one that encourages imagination, exploration or advancement. Although the Chinese in general are an efficient people, they have not continued their at one time rapid advances in technology. This is partly due to the fact that women have so often been kept to the side and unable to be involved in the same aspect as men are. Some may argue that the women influence in the home as a caregiver would have somewhat of an impact on their value and importance. However, in Chinese and many other societies, "homemaker" is thought to be the only role for women and not considered to be one of great value. It is not surprising that after thousands of years, the transformation of the Chinese society still reflects the patriarchal history of traditional China and the defining characteristics that define women in a submissive role to men. This paper will examine the attitudes and feelings toward women, give examples of women in leadership positions throughout the history of China, discuss their inability to bring forth change to the patriarchal society and the modern day status of women.

Since as early as the 7th century BC, gender inequality in China has been an on going problem from before the birth of a child until after its death. The "We want a boy" mentality still exists today in Chinese thinking when it comes to young couples planning to start a family. What's even worse is that it is reinforced by nonsensical family traditions in a nation where filial piety often dictates family decisions. Parents usually desired sons in order to make familial propagation, security for the elderly, labor provision, and performance of ancestral rites (Perry). Giving birth to a girl meant that not only these things would fail to be performed, but that the family name would not be carried on. Families would sometimes be devastated by the news that a newborn baby is a girl. The desire to give birth to a boy far exceeds that of a girl and people go to great lengths to ensure themselves the birth of a boy.

One of the methods people use to increase there chances of giving birth to a boy is called "sex-selective abortion." This is the practice of aborting a fetus after an ultrasound determines that the fetus is a girl. Sex-selective abortion was rare before the late 20th century because of the difficulty of determining the sex of the fetus before birth. "This method has become increasingly popular since the invention of ultrasound and is believed to be responsible for at least part of the skewed birth statistics in favor of males in Mainland China. Sex-selective abortion is illegal but nearly impossible in enforce because there is no practical way to determine the parents' true motivation for seeking abortion (Wikipedia)."

Before the invention of the ultrasound, people could not perform sex-selective abortion but rather would perform sex-selective infanticide or sex-selective child abandonment. Sex-selective child abandonment is the practice of giving an infant of an undesired sex, which was typically female, up for adoption or even simply leaving it somewhere to die. That is if the parents decide to allow the child to live. Those parents that don't even want the child to live commit sex-selective infanticide. This type of infanticide appears to have been practiced at various times in Chinese history, such as in the Qing dynasty, due to population pressures. An example of this horrible atrocity is told by a women know as "Rani." When Rani returned home from the hospital cradling her newborn daughter, the men in the family slipped out of her mud hut while she and her mother-in-law mashed poisonous oleander seeds into a dollop of oil and forced it down the infant's throat. As soon as darkness fell, Rani crept into a nearby field and buried her baby girl in a shallow, unmarked grave next to a small stream. Rani expressed that she never even felt any sorrow and that there was a lot of bitterness in her heart towards the baby because the gods should have given her a son.

Rani's story is just one example of an unfortunate and sad truth that takes place hundreds or even thousands of time each year throughout the world. There are though many people that do keep their newborn daughters and take care of them. However, girls are often deprived of many of the things that boys receive during childhood and life in general. Boys are not only generally breast-fed longer as infants then girls, but also comparatively better fed and nourished as they grow up. "A survey on health conducted among 44,530 children of minority ethnicity in 10 areas of Yunnan Province in 2001 showed that the malnutrition rate among girls is 22.12 percent and among boys, 14.4 percent. The causes of the girls higher rate of malnutrition are insufficient protein intake, too much housework and lack of sleep (unchina)." The survey also shows that 90 percent of girls in poverty-stricken areas have much more domestic work to do than boys. They have to look after children, cook for the family, chop firewood, carry water and feed the pigs and then get less than eight hours sleep a night.

If a boy gets sick, the family will take him to the hospital immediately, even if it is the middle of the night or is rainy and windy. When a girl gets sick, however, the family will wait for a convenient time to take her to the hospital. A number of family members will accompany a boy to see the doctor, but girls are often taken to hospital by their mothers alone. "Once a boy is known to be sick, it will be 10 hours on average until he is taken to see a doctor. For girls it is an average of 17 hours (unchina)."

In many parts of rural China, the education of girls has been neglected. Girls have less access to primary schools and fewer girls attend school than boys of all ages. The reason for this was often because there was not enough money for the both to attend school and the girls were needed to help with household chores and farming. More girls than boys are taken out of school and there is a much